Yesterday Revision3‘s Diggnation teamed up with high dynamic range video (HDR) outfit Soviet Montage Productions to produce the first ever episode of web television (or any type of television, for that matter) shot in HDR video.
HDR video, whose roots are in HDR imaging pioneered in photography and computer graphics, employs a set of techniques allowing for a greater dynamic range of luminance between the lightest and darkest areas of an image. In simpler terms, two pictures—one overexposed and one underexposed—are slapped on top of one another. The resulting image is intended to more accurately capture the range of intensity levels found in real life, yet (ironically) comes across as somewhat artificial and cgi-like because of its detail.
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The 277th episode of Diggnation was shot on location in San Francisco’s Alamo Square Park with the historic Painted Ladies (the houses from Full House) in a sunny backdrop in order to demonstrate the stunning capabilty of HDR technology. Soviet Montage Productions, a small studio based in San Francisco, took its inspiration from the advancements of HDR in photography, and have been developing cutting edge techniques to make HDR a reality for video. They have an illustrative demo of the tech on their blog.